In a significant legal ruling, the Akure Magistrate Court has declared a particular aspect of Igbo custom as barbaric, evil, and ungodly, highlighting the denial of a father’s access to his children due to non-payment of bride price to the wife’s family.
Magistrate Segun Stephen Rotiba delivered this judgment during a legal dispute between Prophet Theophilus Obayan and his estranged wife, Prophetess Chibuzor Lilian. The couple, both leaders of the Divine Prophetic Solutions Prayers Ministry in Ladipo, Lagos State, came from different ethnic backgrounds, with Obayan being Yoruba and Chibuzor hailing from Abia State.
The conflict arose when Prophetess Chibuzor left her husband to marry one of his spiritual sons, Abua Obi, and subsequently changed her children’s surname to Obi. In response, Obayan filed for divorce, citing grounds of disobedience, misunderstanding, lies, manipulation, abuse, hate, and rage.
Furthermore, Prophet Obayan contested the custody of his four children, alleging that a member of his church had taken them. He sought the return of paternity rights and custody of the children.
In his ruling, Magistrate Rotiba dissolved the marriage, citing a mutual loss of interest in the union. He granted Obayan’s request to reclaim his four children. Notably, the Respondent acknowledged during cross-examination that since the Petitioner (Obayan) had not paid her bride price, her new husband, Abua Obi, had the right to have the children bear his name according to Igbo custom.
Magistrate Rotiba vehemently condemned this aspect of the Igbo custom, deeming it atavistic, barbaric, evil, ungodly, irrational, unsensational, crass, gross, crude, unwary, provocative, discriminatory, and insensible. He expressed strong disapproval for a custom that penalizes one person when two consenting adults are involved in the act, labeling it as an epitome of insensitivity and servitude.
The Magistrate also criticized a publication in Vanguard newspapers on February 2, 2023, which changed the surname of the first two children of the parties to “Abua Obi.” He pointed out that such actions were not only complicit in changing the children’s surnames but also amounted to subjudice, as they interfered with the matter pending before the Court. This, he noted, constituted an affront to the Court.
The Akure Magistrate Court officially dissolved the union between the parties, declaring the Igbo custom that awards paternal personality to a man who is not the biological father of the children as “persona non grata.” The Court also invalidated and rendered null and void the publication that changed the surname of the first and second children from Obayan to Abua Obi. Any other publication altering the children’s surname during the pendency of this case was similarly invalidated by the Court.
